


Mothers

by Bees_forever



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Death in Childbirth, F/F, Ghosts, Number Five | The Boy and Luther Hargreeves are Twins, Sexism, births
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29263875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bees_forever/pseuds/Bees_forever
Summary: A look at the women who gave birth on October 1st 1989
Comments: 50
Kudos: 99





	1. Blue and Green

Anna loves order. She loves to plan things out and she loves to know what happens next.    
So this is unfair. Completely unfair. If she’d ever wanted kids then planned ones. With someone she likes and a little house with a garden big enough for a sandbox and maybe a swingset for when the kid is old enough, with a nursery already set up and painted and with enough money saved up for them to live comfortably.   
  
This. This is not that. This happened in university.    
She hates attention. She knows she’ll always get a little because she’s… odd in many ways. She tries to avoid raising her hand too much. All she wants is to study and become a Biochemist and work in a lab with the thing she really truly loves, maybe - just maybe - come up with something big.    
But when she yelled out because of the sudden pain - a pain she now knows was  _ labor  _ \- she didn’t care about everyone staring at her when her hands went to the place of the pain right where her shirt ended in her jeans she felt something huge and bulging... and she couldn't even think about what that meant because the pain was too much.    
  
Somebody called an ambulance but she was already halfway through the baby’s head showing… the first baby that is.    
She’s not actually sure how the other one got out. She just felt the one and maybe that’s normal with twins she’s not sure, Krista who stays with her during the ride to the hospital swears her stomach lit up blue right as she pushed out the other one and there was the boy. “Looking all smug, like he was proud to be faster,” Krista told her and giggled.   
  
Krista sat next to her in uni since first semester, they never really talked other than when she asked for a pen and Anna took her for some vapid girl with her blonde hair and pretty fashion but she was the one who rolled her jeans down and held her hand and told her she was doing a great job.    
In the hospital Krista tells her that she heard about the babies on the radio before on the radio on her way to school. “Magical births,” she said. “Really freaky. Thought it was a hoax at first but evidently not…”

No evidently not.    
She keeps looking at the boys. They’ve been home with her for two days now. Krista has been an angel. She was the one who brought her the basins, the same model but one is green and the other blue, to put them in and most of the clothes.    
Her parents keep calling asking what the hell happened, what she’s going to do now, surely she can’t raise children, surely she can’t. The last call ends with her mother lightly suggesting that maybe… if she needs help because she’s  _ so young,  _ twenty is still so young, she can count on them to take the boys in.    
Anna can’t deal with that right now, she can’t deal with her parents, she doesn’t want to.    
She wants to... just stare at these babies, these boys, with their tiny hands and little feet and big eyes looking up at her with a trust that scares her everytime and wrap her head around what happened to her.    
_ How are they boys? _ she thinks again and again. “You shouldn’t be boys, I think, I mean it doesn’t really make sense that you are because you don’t have a Dad to give you a y-chromosome and… all that,” she tells them quietly. They don’t answer. “Maybe you’re a little young for genetics... “

The one she put in the green bassinet coos at her tiny hand reaching out for hers. “Oh no!” she says and shakes her head. “We did that last time and my finger still hurts.”    
It does. He kept yanking at it and she thought he’d break it. She thinks newborns aren’t supposed to be that strong. 

  
The doorbell rings and she gets up.    
Maybe it’s Krista with more toys or clothes and questions about names for the two. She’s thinking about naming them after the brothers in her favourite book from childhood. It’s sad though since both of them die (is she being morbid and awful? They have a nice time in the afterlife don’t they?).    
Or maybe it’s another fucking tabloid reporter who wants the story and ‘cute baby pics with a pretty young mother’ as Krista said with a wink and a smile and… she really hopes it’s her instead of those reporters. She really likes Krista actually. Really, really. 

It’s not Krista and no reporter either. It’s… a celebrity. In a way at least.    
Sir Reginald Hargreeves is somewhat reclusive and she only knows about him through his work in science but she thinks he has a lot of money and some other achievements somehow. She isn’t too sure.   
She looks at him frazzled and confused. 

“I… Can I help you?” 

“We’ll see about that,” he says shortly in brash English not even looking at her, walking right into her small apartment.

He goes to her (their) bedroom and inspects the bassinets.    
“Where’s the other one?” he asks and looks at the blue bassinets. Anna sees with some distress that it’s empty again. Oh. Shit.    
“He… he does that sometimes. I…” she looks around. “Usually he ends up under the kitchen sink…” she runs into the kitchen and is relieved to find the baby there sleeping incredibly content between all the cleaning agents. She really needs to put them somewhere else. She picks him up and he whines a little tucking his little head against her shoulder. 

“Fascinating…” Hargreeves says and she turns to see her walking in with her other boy. “How much do you want for them?” 

  
  
  


It’s a lot of money. Krista helps negotiate the prize after she calls her. It’s enough to get her through Uni without having to work and being able to fully concentrate on her studies.    
And the babies are better off with Reginald Hargreeves anyway, she tells herself.    
How would she have been able to keep on studying with two babies?    
It’s for the best. Nannies to attend to them 24/7, a big house, the best education, a father who can buy them all the toys they’d ever want… it’s for the best. They’ll have it good.    
Weirdly enough she realizes that she misses them. She wishes Hargreeves would have taken their bassinets with them. 

Krista tells her he’s probably getting them some state of the art cribs. “Like… automatically rocking them and singing lullabies, you know?” Anna giggles. “Sure. Why not a robot as a nanny?” “Who knows? Bet he got the money.” Krista says and smiles her pretty smile.    
  
That’s when she kisses her. It’s weird. She thinks they would have worked it out together somehow with the boys. But in the end… she’s glad that it’s just the two of them and that she doesn’t have to think of the twins and can just concentrate on her. 

* * *

It takes five years for her to think of them again for real. She’s done with Uni, has a job, a small starting position and she and Krista are living together. It’s working out. 

She thinks about the twins when she sees two small raincoats. One is green and the other is blue and for a second she thinks  _ My boys would be the right age to wear these now…  _ They aren’t her boys though. She gave them away. They’re Hargreeve’s boys now.    
  
She asks Krista if maybe she should send something for their birthday. Five is an age they’d ask questions about their mother isn’t it? As far as she knows Hargreeves doesn’t have a wife.    
Krista thinks it’s a good idea actually. “They’re big boys now, aren’t they?” she asks and smiles slightly.    
“Yes,” Anna says.    
  
It’s a simple present in the end. Two copies of the Astrid Lindgren book they’d almost been named after and two small dog plushies one blue and one green. She looks at the cover of one of the books. Two boys sitting next to each other on a bridge surrounded by cherry trees in bloom, fishing and looking at each other.   
“They’ll love it,” Krista tells her and smiles. “You got the address?”    
“Yes… I attached a letter for Hargreeves. He doesn’t have to tell them it’s from me if he doesn’t want to but… just…”    
Krista nods. “He’ll know what’s best for them.”    
“Yes… yes, he’s their father now…”    
“He is.”    
  
They send the package of and Anna hopes they’ll like it.

* * *

She’s coming home from work when she finds out.    
“Quick!” Krista calls. She’s sitting on the couch and looking at the TV. There’s a report on and at first she thinks it’s about some private school. Pre-teens in uniforms standing in front of a building and like always since her mystery birth she thinks: _ That’s the age the twins would be right now _ .    
And then she realizes what the reporters are saying and her back slips out of her hand. 

  
  


These are Reginald Hargreeves’ children the reporter states. Adopted after the sudden births in october of 1989 and they just stopped a bank robbery. They have special powers. They're a super hero team. The Umbrella Academy.    
  
There’s interviews. A blonde boy nods his head and explains in english how his power is strength, she doesn’t need the danish subtitles for that. He looks proud of himself if a little awkward.    
She feels Krista’s hand on her shoulder. That must be the boy she put in the green bassinet, the one who almost broke her finger at only a few days old.    
“He has your eyes,” Krista tells her.    
He does and isn’t that just the weirdest thing?    
  
Her other boy even gets to show off his powers. A skip of blue and he’s at another place. He looks at the camera. _Smug like he's proud to be faster._

  
The other children get to introduce their powers as well.    
The only girl can control people by saying  _ I heard a rumor _ . Which is incredible specific   
The boy with the dark hair next to her green boy throws knives which the girl explains for some reason, the boy between the girl and her blue boy sees ghosts and the boy at the very end who is splashed in blood has tentacles in his stomach or something, it’s weird. They’re all kinda weird. She shouldn't be thinking that about her children, should she?    
  
She learns their names. The one she put in green is Luther and the one she put in blue is Five. They don’t mention their twins.    
  
“You think Five’s a nickname or something?” she asks Krista, voice quivering. This is too much.    
“Probably. Maybe he’s ashamed of his actual name. I mean if the other one’s Luthaaaah…” she giggles.    
Anna doesn’t.    
“I hope they’re careful,” she says while watching the reporter talk about the children, the adoption, the controversy of it all. “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”    
Krista nods. “Yeah. Me too…” 

“It’s… I didn’t let him adopt them for this… I didn’t think… I mean… I thought they’d get a good life there, they’re not supposed to be child soldiers I…”    
Krista wraps an arm around her.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
He’s gone.    
Her little blue boy who made his way out in such an untraditional way is gone.    
He’s been gone for months now. Not attending interviews with his brothers and sister, not showing up to missions but for a while Anna just pretended it was nothing. Maybe Five got hurt, maybe he’s sick, maybe he likes attention as little as she does… 

But they weren't able to hide it any longer and had to issue a statement. The children in the background all looking down none of them saying a word.    
His father said he acted out and ran away. 

There’s theories in all news sources, conspiratory whispering about what  _ actually  _ happened and she feels sick. 

  
Krista is angry. “How could he? He said the boys would be well taken care of and now he just… he just lets one vanish??? How? He promised… we should get the other one out of there! All of them!” 

  
Anna sits on the couch and stares at the picture of her boy in the newspaper.    
He looks so young. Thirteen years. She thinks of the kitchen sink. It’s her fault. If she hadn’t let this happen. Had yelled at Hargreeves to get out and leave her babies alone maybe he’d be sitting here at the table doing his homework or squabbling with his brother. 

They can’t get them out of there even if they wanted. They have signed all rights over to Hargreeves. 

* * *

Years go on. There’s not as much about them on the news after Five vanished. From time to time they save someone important or stop a big thing from happening. They have missions all around the world.   
They never come to Denmark and she's sort of glad for it.    
She tries to forget about them. But from time to time things pop up and she feels guilty all over. At least Luther is still there. Looking brave for the cameras. At least she gets to watch him grow up like this.

  
  


One of them dies and she swallows hard and hopes his mother doesn't follow the Umbrella Academy like she does. Doesn't pay attention to these things. Doesn’t have to feel the guilt. 

As they grow up things change.   
She sees something about one of their adopted siblings getting into drugs. The girl turns into a movie star.    
  
It goes silent around The Umbrella Academy. Her green boy is the only one left doing missions.    
  
Until…    
It’s an accident. Biochemicals are involved and she tries not to think about the irony. Tries not to think about the way acid can burn through skin. Tries… tries…    
Hargreeves says he is alive and needs time to rest and heal before he can go back to come into the spotlight.    
She knows it's bullshit. This is more serious. And he's only 22, he's only just 22 years old he got his whole life still ahead of him. 

It’s enough. She has a number.    
Had it since Five vanished. It wasn’t that big of a hassle to find it, knowing the address of Hargreeves’ manor. She wanted to call. But what was she going to say?   
  
Now she knows. She has some choice words for Hargreeves.    
She’s so angry. He lost her blue boy and now he destroyed her green boy. She gave them to him for a better life. Not for a wasted one.    
  
“Hargreeves manor?” a female voice says.    
“I’m…” for some reason she thought Reginald Hargreeves would answer, that was naive wasn’t it? Of course he’d have employees dealing with this. “How’s Luther?” she asks suddenly.    
There’s silence for a bit.    
“He hasn’t woken up yet,” the woman says quietly.    
“Who are you?” Anna wants to know.    
“I’m his mother.”    
Anna swallows hard. She wants to tell her _N_ _o you're not I am_ but she can't can she? She gave him up. “Is he going to survive?”    
“Yes,” there’s no doubt in her voice.    
“You make sure he’s alright,” she says and hangs up.    
  
Hargreeves sends him to the moon a few years later. 

She stares at the newspaper feeling numb. 

It’s bad. Her boys are ruined. One lost and the other one locked away on the moon. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Reginald Hargreeves has died. She stares at the screen and is suddenly amazingly relieved.    
He’s gone. He’s dead.    
  
She gets up to tell Krista and steps through the door with the newspaper. 

  
  


She stops. Something feels like it’s changed and what did she want to do again?    
She looks down at the newspaper. There’s something about the sparrow academy on the front page. That super hero tream out of kids born under the same circumstances as her boys. Huh. She puts it down. 

The doorbell rings. 

  
At the door is her son. His brown hair is messy and his suit looks disheveled.    
She moves to hug him.    
“Late night?” she asks softly and he shrugs.    
“Krista says hi, saw her at the cafe the other day,” he tells her.    
Anna nods stifly, they have been separated since the boys were ten, it just didn’t work out forever. 

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” her son says after glancing at the clock and gets a laptop out of his bag. He starts it and clicks a video chat opens. His brother smiles at them and she smiles, he’s on the international space station and his big excited smile makes her heart burn with love and pride. He starts talking about everything there shows her his pen floating around while his brother helps himself with some coffee. 

  
  
On the wall hangs a picture. Two boys in identical raincoats but one is green and the other is blue.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this idea for a while now but for some reason I never came around to write it.   
> The book Luther and Five were almost named after is called "The brothers lionheart" I have no idea if it's well known internationally but it's one of my own faves.   
> The idea of Five teleporting out of the womb isn't from me but I haven't been able to find the tumblr post again.


	2. Mobile and shark smiles

María stares at the sum the man has written down. It’s a lot.    
Then she looks back at the bed where the little boy is. It’s a bed her older sister used for her baby not too long ago, there’s a baby mobile over it, tigers and elephants and parrots spin above the baby’s head. 

  
It keeps spinning. It spins a lot actually. That’s odd… she looks at the window but she closed it before when too much fumes from the street came in. She frowns and walks over holding the mobile in place, the baby blinks up at her, eyes filling with tears stretching his little arms out and whimpering slightly. She looks at him and sighs letting go.   
“Sorry,” she whispers and gives it a little tuck. The boy coos content once again. “You like this one, huh?” she asks and smiles a little.    
He is a cute baby. The cutest. Soft dark hair covers his small head and his dark eyes look up at her as if he understands perfectly well what’s going on all the time. 

  
She’s still shocked about this whole thing. It happened suddenly and fast and it  _ hurt _ .    
She always wanted kids but not really like this.    
She’s 17, she still lives at home, she doesn’t have the money for a baby and this… the money this old man who introduced himself as Reginald Hargreeves and told her to think it over wants to give her for the boy it would pay for so many things...   
  
María doesn’t want to give up her baby though. The birth was horrible and she still wakes up from nightmares about her belly suddenly expanding but he’s her baby, isn’t he?    
And people would be disappointed in her if she gave him up. She can’t say that she’s too religious but the comparison to Maria from the bible and Jesus of Nazaret isn’t lost to her. A young girl, immaculate conception and a baby boy…   
Everybody who knows her either sees her as a saint or a whore now and she knows in which way it’s going to shift if she actually sells the boy.    
  
She doesn’t even know how to take care of a baby, her sister and mother had to show her everything. 

María sighs deeply. “What am I going to do with you?” she asks the baby.    
The baby just keeps staring at the mobile.    
.    
Hargreeves did mention the hotel he was staying in and that he had other babies.    
  
“I think I should at least check it out, huh?”    
The baby tries to reach for the mobile again. She sighs. She should. She can always say No if she thinks he treats the babies wrong.    
“Alright,” she picks her son up. “Wanna go for your first walk?”

* * *

  
  
She takes him in the stroller, also a hand-me-down from her sister and walks down the street, her boy fuzzes looking at her like he feels betrayed. He misses the mobile she thinks. Or maybe she strapped him in wrong? She checks again. No. It should be right this way, shouldn’t it?   
She tries to shush him as they walk down the street feeling people staring at them. The teenage mother and the fuzzy baby. 

She enters the four seasons and looks around going to the counter shyly.    
It’s intimidatingly luxurious. 

  
“Excuse me? I uh… I wanted to ask… is Reginald Hargreeves… uh… does he have time?”    
Her kid keeps fuzzing. Should she feed him? Check his diaper? Oh God not right now…    
The man at the counter nods professionally and tells her she’s expected. He asks her to leave the stroller in the entrance hall and while she picks her baby up she gets a whiff of his diaper. Alright. A change is definitely in order. 

Mr Hargreeves shakes her hand as she enters and when she asks if there’s a place for her to change her baby he nods leading her to another room on the floor where a woman in an old fashioned dress takes the baby off of her and changes him quick and efficiently.    
  
“He’s developing a bit of a rash. Probably because of the cheap diaper. I’ll put some extra powder on if that’s alright with you?” she says and María’s cheeks light up. She tried so hard to get a hang of the whole changing thing, watched as her mother and sister showed her what to do but apparently she didn’t do it right again.    
“Yes, uh… that would be great, thanks,” she says and looks down.    
  
“This would be his nanny, as you can see he’d be given the best care,” Hargreeves says and María nods not knowing what else to say.

  
“Can I see… Can you show me the other babies?” she asks finally. She wants to know them. Wants to know they’re okay, so she’ll know her boy would be okay with this man.    
“Of course,” he smiles and María feels reminded of the cartoon shark on one of the onesies that came from her nephew. 

  
  
The babies are all in separate rooms Hargreeves explains that he rented the whole floor as their nannies carry them out.   
She looks them over, they’re all wearing identical onesies with an umbrella logo right over their chest.  
  
“You could all be friends,” she says to her little boy once he’s handed back to her after his change. “Would you like that? A whole house full of friends to play with?”   
He probably would, wouldn’t he? And she isn’t good enough for him. She already proved so much. Tears well up in her eyes and she kisses his cheek. “I think you’d like that…” she mumbles and smiles slightly.   
  
It’s settled then. María is giving her boy away. She kisses his cheek again and again before she hands him over to his new father. He cries a little and she shushes him. “Gotta be brave now,” she tells him.   
  
“Excuse me?” she asks the nanny quietly in spanish, hoping she’ll understand it. “Can you… can you keep an eye on him and when he’s bigger if he asks about me… just tell him I tried my best?” she says.   
The woman nods. “Of course.” 

“And tell him… tell him I wanted to call him Diego. His name is Diego.”    


* * *

It  _ is  _ a lot of money.   
  


She doesn’t touch it for a while though. It feels wrong to use money that was given to her for selling her child. She just puts it on the bank and tries to forget all about the whole thing.   
It isn’t easy, she can’t just forget about her child.

  
She only touches the money when she’s pregnant again six years later.    
It’s for a bed for his little sister, the old one his cousin lent him is too broken at this point but the mobile is still perfectly fine. She smiles as she hangs it up over the crib. It fits perfectly fine.    
“I’ll tell you all about your big brother when you’re here,” she whispers to her belly and smiles when she feels the baby kick. 

  
  


She gets him something too.   
A toy yo-yo and a small plush tiger. She buys those not from Hargreeves’ money but from her own and sends it off with a letter, she tries to tell her son sorry, tells him she loves him, tells him about his baby sister and tells him to be a good boy then she sends it off.   
No letter comes back and that doesn’t really surprise her at all. She thinks she’d be mad at herself too if she was in his situation. He must feel like she gave him up. To an old man with a shark smile, replaced him with his younger sister.    
  
She doesn’t touch the money again. She doesn’t want to. She can’t. As soon as she has the money for the bed of her daughter back she puts it back on the bank.    
It’s his money she decides then. He’s the one who was paid for and it was never for her. Somehow at some point in their lives she’ll meet him again and hand it all over to him. She likes that thought.  
  
She does tell her daughter, just like she told her father. Not too much just enough so they know she has another child. She keeps most of it to herself.   
When she's five her daughter asks if they can't visit him, she tells her they don't even know for sure if he has the name she wanted for him.   


Until they do. 

It’s all over the news. She stares at the screen. He’s thirteen. Thirteen. Not even for long.   
And he just saved some people. A bank. He and the others are standing there but she singles him out at once. Looks at him and suddenly she feels nauseous. She can’t look at him. She just can’t.    
When she learns that the nanny made her promise come true and that he is named Diego she throws up and bans any mention of that awful academy from her house.    
Her daughter doesn’t get it, her husband does. He puts a hand on her back and goes along with it. 

News about them still slips in from time to time.    
One of them vanishes and her heart beats fast. It’s not her boy.    
One of them dies and her heart sinks. It’s not her boy.    
One of them stays in the house after everyone moves out and she feels her chest burn. It’s not her boy. 

* * *

The money is still there. Saved up for him.    
He’s 18. He moved out.    
She asks her daughter for help. She finds her brother quickly and it makes her think that maybe she had the information already, computer savvy as she is.    
  
She flies out, she doesn’t want to tell him who she is. She just wants him to have the money, it’ll be a good way to start into his life as an adult. If he asks though she tells herself she’ll tell him, he deserves that at least. Deserves to know how she relates to his life. But only if he wants to know. 

  
She stands in front of the apartment her son lives in now. She rang the bell four times already, he probably isn’t home.    
Of course he isn’t. He’s a young man in the middle of a busy, exciting city. He probably goes out around this time. She hopes he’s being safe. 

If he isn’t there   
  


She wants to go back to the hotel, maybe try it tomorrow morning when she hears steps on the stairs and giggling. 

And then he stands there, a young woman next to him, holding onto her hand tightly, they both have big smiles on their faces and blush spreading to their cheeks.    
Something warm and soft moves in her chest. He’s in love, the little baby who kept staring at his mobile is all grown up and in love.   
  
They stop. “Can we help you?” the young woman asks. María’s eyes are just on him though. He’s so tall, so handsome and grown up. He looks at her with a scowl standing behind the woman as if to say  _ don’t touch her _ . 

She swallows. “I have money,” she says knowing that they will be able to tell her accent. Tell that she doesn’t belong here. She’s just a stranger to them. “It’s yours.” She’s still only looking at her boy. “I… it’s always been yours,” she walks up to him and hands him the check.

  
He can finance college with it, a new apartment for himself and his girlfriend, maybe something will still be left for when he’s a father himself. Another baby, another mobile.    
Or he can waste it. He can do whatever he wants, he’s an adult now, isn’t he. 

  
He looks down at the sheck. “I… That’s… why’d you give me that much money? What’s the condition?”    
She shakes her head. “Disculpe,” she whispers and looks down. “No conditions.”    
Then she leaves. Fast. Before he can question her about anything else. Despite what she told herself she doesn’t want him to know about her. She’s not able to face his anger.    
  
“W-wait! Who are you?” he yells after her.    
She can hear the woman saying something to him quietly.    
It’s all good, she thinks. She did what she meant to do. 

* * *

  
She’s glad that he isn’t smiling on the picture of him the news used to announce his death. She doesn’t want to see the shark smile she sold her son to again.    
She’s glad he’s dead. She’s glad her son won’t have to deal with him any longer. It’s quiet in the apartment, her daughter moved out, her husband’s still at work. She’s alone… 

She’s alone.    
She looks around in confusion for a second. Something changed. She was watching TV wasn’t she? She thought there was something important on but she can’t remember. Was it about the sparrow academy?

That team of superheroes, born on the same day as her son and sold to billionaire Reginald Hargreeves to serve as his soldiers. 

  
She looks right. Oh, Diego wanted to come over with the grandkids. She should prepare some food for it. She smiles to herself as she begins to cook, glad that her husband is out working, her son and him never quite got along.    
  
For a moment she thinks about the news again. The Sparrow Academy… poor kids.    
She can’t help but scoff a little at their parents. No matter how hard it was in the beginning she wouldn’t have given up Diego even with how hard it was at the beginning. Not for any money in the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's interested, I think the money was mostly spend on paying for the police academy and later bail... and maybe to a few of Klaus' rehabs. 
> 
> (Also Reggie only smiles when he tries to manipulate children and teenagers into giving him what he wants)


	3. Starchild on the metro floor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... a little darker than the others?  
> There are mentions of sexism and also some parts where the birth gets described more closer, though it's not very grafic (mostly because I've never given birth myself or been present at one apart from my own and all I know is like the science and stuff, which is scary enough for me). 
> 
> Also in the last paragraphs there's mentions of alzheimer's. It's also ambiguous, just take note.

Maryse was on her way to work when it happened.  
Whatever it is. Her mother called it a miracle.  
With her laying on the floor of the dirty metro as people looked down at her, a middle aged woman looking under her skirt to help her give birth… it did not feel miraculous at all. 

She thinks she’ll write about this for the newspaper. That’s a good idea isn’t it?  
Offer the perspective of a woman who was actually affected by _the event_.  
The only articles she’s seen so far were about how strange it is, some religious folks trying to claim it all as the second coming of Christ and doctors confused by the whole thing trying to put some medical explanation on it.   
Nothing showing how it actually feels to suddenly give birth unexpectedly. It would put things into perspective, that the women who gave birth are _real_ people.  
  
Louis, the senior editor is over the moon when she tells him about the idea.  
“It’s too bad you gave her away, Mar. You could document her life if you hadn’t,” he tells her and Maryse smiles tightly. 

No, she wouldn’t have wanted to keep the girl. She just started her job. Her apartment in Paris is small and basically one room, the heating keeps failing, there’s molt in the kitchen. No place for a baby.

And then there’s the other stuff. The feeling. The fear. She thought it was her period at first and frowned because fuck, she wasn’t supposed to get that for weeks, didn't pack any tampons and then the pain really started and people realized what was going on and she was on the ground and… she still feels so dirty. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to get the smell out of her nose. Disgusting metro and blood and shit and sweat…  
She’s showered everyday since giving birth, multiple times.  
It was lucky when Reginald Hargreeves came to take the baby. He’s collecting them and yes, that does give her a bad feeling but… this is better. She doesn’t think Hargreeves is going to be the one doing too much of the raising anyway. He’s not really a fatherly type. It’s more of a prestige thing and scientific interest. Nannies will look after them, schooled people who know about parenting and children and Maryse really doesn’t. 

She writes that in the introduction of her article and then goes over to explain the fear she felt when it happened suddenly, in the Metro. How she felt used. Used by a baby and how would she keep her after something like that?  
She writes that the baby was beautiful though, which she really was (she smelled really good too surprisingly) and after she heard her scream in the hospital she did breastfeed her strangely enough, she hadn't planned on it. 

She finishes her article by wishing the girl luck. Hoping her life will be sweet and easy in America with Hargreeves. As sweet as the girl herself.  
  
She has a picture of them in the hospital that her mother took.  
A young woman holding a fresh, tiny baby. She adds it to the article just like the birth certificate with the blank space where the name should be.  
  
The article steers some controversy. Readers write in to call her a heartless bitch for giving up the girl, others understand her. Overall it’s a successful article.  
She keeps it and tells herself it’s just to remember her accomplishment, nothing else as she puts it in a folder while moving out of the apartment with mold in the kitchen. 

That’s something the money was good for at least.  
Her mother was sad about the baby being given away. She didn’t get it. Maryse still gives her some of the money for her and Dad’s vacation. She gives it back.  
“I’m not going to use the money you got for my first grandchild,” she tells her over the phone.

“My first grandchild” is what Maryse’s mother calls the baby (though she’s hardly a baby anymore at that point, is she?) three years later when she wants to send a baby doll out to America.  
  


“Maman. Reginald Hargreeves is a billionaire, I don’t think she lacks any toys.”  
“He’s also a white man. What if he doesn’t get her any dolls who have her skin color?”  
“Maman…” 

“No, listen Maryse, this girl, my first grandchild is growing up in a strange place I don’t know anything about but I do know about child raising and I want my granddaughter to have dolls that look like her! She’s not going to grow up like me.”  
  
In the end Maryse lets her mother send it to Hargreeve’s manor and even adds a small collection of colored crayons which she remembers loving as a child. She isn’t surprised when nobody mails back and tries to calm her mother down over it. She probably just has a lot of toys already, growing up with six kids her age in the house of a billionaire, a cheap doll and a set of crayons is not going to impress her very much.

* * *

  
  
It’s 2002 and she’s been with the newspaper for years now.  
When she walks into the office one morning Louis stops her.  
“Maryse, have you seen the news?” he asks instead of a greeting.  
“News?” she asks and sips from her coffee. “What news?”  
  
“It’s all over the TV, wait!” he says and starts it.  
She frowns. Six kids in school uniforms are standing on the steps in front of a bank.  
  
“Almost Thirteen years ago Reginald Hargreeves adopted babies born under the strange events of October 1st 1989 the quiet and mysterious billionaire has kept his children out of the public view for years now. Today this changed as these six just saved a bank de-escalating a hostage situation, a few weeks shy of their thirteenth birthday! Mr Hargreeves explained they are extraordinary individuals and these children are the inaugural class of the Umbrella Academy…”  
  
She doesn’t listen to more of it because the camera focuses on the kids now panning over them and there… there she is.  
The only girl between a bunch of boys in shorts. She wears a plaid dress and her smile is big and charming. She looks so young and sweet and for a moment Maryse’s heart burns.  
The baby grew up, didn’t she? 

  
  


They run a small story on them, not too much. She doesn’t want to mention her old article. 

From then on the Umbrella Academy is everywhere, there’s merch, there’s comics and so many more ‘missions’. 

She gets a little hyped about it herself.  
At least she gets to see the baby (Allison, her name is Allison and she catches herself quietly repeating it after the girl introduces herself, trying to pronounce it the same way she does) growing up a little bit. 

Her mother doesn’t like it, of course. “They’re so young! He’s making them fight and they’re still children!”  
“They’re teens, maman. I’m sure Hargreeves is making sure they’re safe. He’s a genius and inventor. He knows what he’s doing.”

Her mother huffs and shakes her head. “I don’t trust that man as much as you do. There’s going to happen something horrible.” 

She tries not to think about that. 

They’re in Paris at some point, this little group of school uniforms wearing superheroes  
And following a strange gut feeling she asks the reporter who’s sent out if she can come along and he agrees.   
She has a lot of conflicting feelings about Allison. One of them is without the shadow of a doubt resentment. Thinking back she still feels violated. Seeing the marks on her stomach where it suddenly grew until she had the body of a woman about to give birth despite it being completely _flat_ before that makes her feel sick but when she looks at this girl, this beautiful young woman with bright eyes and a wide smile she can’t help but feel sad about the 13 years of life she missed out on.  
How did Allison look when she turned one? Was she happy about the crayons and doll at three? Did she skin her knee playing with her brothers at six and cry and scream? What things was she obsessed with at eight? What crushes does she have and can she talk with her brothers about these things?  
Those are questions she’ll probably never get an answer to but maybe she’ll get a glimpse of her, Allison Hargreeves, teen superhero and baby born in the metro to an unwilling young reporter. 

  
  
The press conference takes place not too far from the eiffel tower.

The blonde leader is trying to explain what their mission was about looking somewhat uncomfortable as he lines up the words as if he’s reciting a poem for school glancing over at the others from time to time. He’s not a people person Maryse thinks, poor kid. 

  
Allison chimes in at the end bright smile and glittering eyes. “What’s really important is that in the end nothing bad happened! We all just got a few scratches.”  
She is a people person and a charmer, Maryse notes with some pride even though in reality she didn’t have anything to do with that, of course. 

One of the reporters asks: “What about all the people that died though? Four casualties! That is something bad, wouldn’t you say?”  
  
“Oh… uh,” Allison looks to the blonde leader who winces and looks away unsure. Apparently answering questions he hasn’t prepared for is something beyond his ability.  
“Well,” her voice quivers. “That’s… sad. It is. But that’s why we got called. It. It was happening before. And if we hadn’t helped you’d have a lot more casualties to deal with. But of course it’s… horrible. Every death we can’t prevent is a bad thing…”  
“But,” the dark haired boy two seats from her who Maryse thinks is the one named like a number says coldly glancing over the crowd. “At least we stopped the death of at least thirty other people.”  
Allison nods and looks back at the people straightening her back. 

  
  
The other questions are kinder towards the umbrella academy. Most people praise them.  
The blonde leader even starts talking again when someone alludes to something about space and has to be elbowed by the boy next to him to stop talking.  
  


The boy on Allison’s left tells jokes that barely have anything to do with the topic at hand but never fails to get some laughs and the kid at the very end answers most questions he gets quietly and thoughtfully. There’s still blood all over his uniform.  
The boy between the leader and Allison barely talks and when he does he struggles getting his words out. 

Allison truly shines over all of them. She speaks with the ease and charme of a star Maryse thinks impressed. Seeing her in persons feels… weird. But charming. She feels light headed when she and her colleague leave and she tells him not to wait for her.  
She really needs a smoke.  
  


  
  
Standing with the back to the building they just had the interview in she lights her cigarette. She frowns when she hears a voice she recognizes.  
  
“Number One I expected better of you. As a leader you’re expected to tackle even difficult questions.” It’s undoubtedly Hargreeves. She heard him so many times on TV before and… that’s him.  
“Sorry Dad,” the blonde leader sounds tired and intimated.  
“It wasn’t really his fault! None of us were prepared for it!” Allison’s voice is clear and angry.   
“Number Three I wasn’t talking to you. You were the one who got you into that situation at first anyway!”  
“I h…” there’s a pause. Then quieter: “Sorry.”  
  
She looks around the corner. There’s Hargreeves with the kids, herding them into the small private plane he flew back when he came to Maryse years ago and all of them look tired.  
Her heart sinks a little. This isn’t really how she expected someone to talk to his adopted children. But… well. Maybe sometimes you have to? Teenagers can be difficult. 

She turns around and walks back to her apartment, she calls in sick. She can't take it suddenly. 

She has no idea what to think. Was her mother right? Did she do something incredibly bad? Did she sell her child to a bad man? He called Allison number three and the blonde leader number one like that is really all they are.  
Or is this the shaming and hate she got over the years finally getting to her? 

She doesn’t know and at home she keeps replaying the conversation she observed over and over in her head. Maybe she did something awful to the baby, to Allison when she gave her away.  
  
It’s just one conversation, Lois tells her when she calls him.  
One excerpt from a life, a stressed father, a bunch of teens… of course sometimes things are harsh. And the numbers might just be a weird in-joke they don’t get because they aren’t part of that family.  
  
And he’s right. She doesn’t know anything. Not really.  
She tries to bury her thoughts. Tries not to think about them. Tries not to think about the girl with the bright smile and how angry and scared she sounded when she talked to her father. 

* * *

She only notes the vanishing of the boy with the number as his name - 5 the number is 5 - because her mother blows up her phone with messages about it.  
“I told you so!” “What if she’s the next?” “He killed him! People think that man killed the boy!”  
She doesn’t want to listen to those weird conspiracies. It seems wrong. Maybe the kid just had enough of being a superhero. He’s old enough to make those decisions for himself. It should be fine. She doesn’t want to think of that academy anymore!  
Her only connection is the girl and she didn't want her either!   
  
  


But with the next big thing the Umbrella Academy is involved in she can’t really ignore them anymore.  
  
It’s December of 2006 and one of them died. The one at the very end. The one who quietly answered when he was asked. His name was Ben. His picture looks down at her from a million angels when she enters the office the next day and listens to her colleagues debating which would look best.  
  
She thinks about Allison for a moment and thanks god it’s not her before she schools herself. A kid just died. It’s horrible. 

Allison’s first movie gets met with a mix of endearment and scorn.  
  
 _Superhero Starlets in acting, why some things should just stay little girl dreams_ is an article written by some asshole months before the movie even hits theaters. The preposterous claim gets made that she used her powers to get into the industry. Her powers or Daddy’s money.

  
  
But she proves him wrong. She proves them all wrong. She’s amazing, beautiful, dazzling.

She’s proud of her. She doesn’t think she was ever prouder.  
She watches the movie in cinemas over and over again and gets it on DVD, she gets the special edition too. She doesn’t even own a TV at that point.  
But isn’t it just wonderful to see her grown up daughter acting? Being a star? A beautiful wonderful sweet star?  
  
She even buys a poster of her and feels her face warm up. She’s developing a real fan cult around her.  
But who wouldn’t Allison went a long way from the baby born on the dirty metro floor.  
  
She follows Allison’s adult life far more closely than she ever followed the events of the academy.  
She watches as she gets nominated for an oscar, she looks over the rumors about her relationships, she scoffs when that horrible book gets released the one where her sister says she bullied her and their lives were hell (she briefly thinks back to when she saw them and shakes her head, the young lady is clearly lying).   
She cheers when she sees the girl getting married to a handsome, young man and she smiles wide when they announce they are expecting a child.

She tells her mother when she visits her in the nursing home. “It’s your first great-grandchild,” she tells her, showing her the magazine with the first picture of little Claire.  
Her mother looks at her with empty unrecognizing eyes.

* * *

The day Hargreeves dies is the same day as her mother dies. She holds her hand as the picture of the man with the monocle is on the small TV.  
She barely notices.  
  


The phone is ringing, she frowns and looks around. There aren’t any phones here. 

  
  


The phone is ringing.  
She picks up.  
  
“Maman?” her daughter asks. Her voice is quivering like she’d been crying.  
“Yes? What’s wrong?”  
“She’s dead Maman! Mamie just died!” she sobs.  
  


  
  
That… she knew that already, didn’t she? Or… no it must have been just a feeling. Her mother had been sick for a while now.  
She feels a cold pain in her heart, it’s grief mixed with jealousy.  
  
Her daughter and mother were always close. Closer than either of them were with her.  
She spent so much time at her Mamie’s place during her childhood it’s safe to say her true mother figure just died. Maryse could never quite get over how she felt about the birth of her no matter what she claimed in all of the articles she wrote about her daughter’s life.  
  
She’s still her mother though. And her daughter needs her now.  
“I’m so sorry, darling. I’ll be right over,” she promises. She hurries.


	4. Gravity

Her name is Franziska.  
She’s Fanni to her family, Franzi to most of the people in school but to the people that really matter she’s Fran.    
She’s not ready to be called Mama too and apparently whoever is in power of her - be it fate or God or whoever else is behind these things - agrees with her.    
  
She bleeds out in Dieter’s bathroom after she had a baby she wasn’t supposed to have.   
Dieter is her boyfriend, he’s older, her parents don’t like him and he even has a car. And now she dies in his shitty bathroom with the Mickey Mouse Comics right next to the toilet.    
  
And then she just… doesn’t leave. 

She stares at the baby and the baby blinks. She reaches out for the baby and for the briefest moment she thinks she can feel his soft head.  
_ You killed me _ , she thinks, her hand goes through his scalp and he starts crying. 

  
  


She’s still there when Dieter finds her. She thinks about him holding her to his chest like lovers in the movies. He doesn’t. He curses loudly and runs to the phone.    
  
She watches as she’s getting put in the ambulance. The baby too. He’s still crying.    
Her parents come to yell at Dieter to cry over their dead daughter and stare at the child who’s somehow the cause of all this

She steps towards him and his tears stop and she puts her hand on his stomach right where the umbilical cord was cut. She tickles him a little and he scrunches up his face. 

  
This is weird she realizes after a while. She’s dead. She should be upset about this. She should feel bad. It is a bad thing to happen and so  _ weird _ . She wasn’t pregnant and yet she suddenly gave birth. She should probably have a lot of feelings about this.    
Death though she discovers dulls most things. It’s sort of a relief, she’s always been a very emotional person.    
They call her one of the 43 and she has no idea what that actually means and she guesses it’s about the baby and the whole weirdness of it. You’d think after death you’d understand things better but there’s nothing she can understand, all she can do is stay close to the baby. 

  
  
  
A man comes and talks to her parents and she realizes he’s taking the baby. She goes with the baby, she figures there's not much else to do she has no other place to go really, she doesn’t want to see what her parents will be up to and she doesn’t want to see Dieter fucking other girls making a name for himself on his own. The baby that ended her life and who looks at her with his big eyes and his scrunched up nose is the only person she still has left in her… well not life, in her existence or whatever this is really.   
But she doesn't think she has much decision in the matter.  
  
It’s the baby she thinks. The baby wants her with him. So she stays around. 

There are other babies on the plane but only the one she gave birth to seems to notice her. Is he even able to see much at this point? She thinks she heard things about newborns not having the best sight yet. She has no idea and it’s not like she can get her hands on any parenting books to explain this to her. 

  
They end up in america if she was alive she’d totally freak out right now just about being there. Seeing New York, the statue of liberty… sounds like a trip she’d save up for months for.    
But like this, she doesn’t really care. She just stays with the baby, the baby won’t let her go. His strange gravity keeps her close to him and she can’t leave.

* * *

She notices that the time isn’t really working for her anymore when the baby is sitting up in his crib with a head is full of little tiny curls staring straight at her.    
She’s pretty sure the last time she saw him he was a bald tiny thing who couldn’t even roll over. 

  
She holds up her hand and waves and the baby points at her and giggles. She smiles a little…  
Her emotions might be dulled down from death but the baby’s aren’t.  
“You’ll feel for me, okay?” she whispers. The baby smiles, big and toothless.  
Fran ruffles through his curls, for the briefest moment she can feel them against her hand 

She keeps skipping parts but she thinks she’s getting a feeling of it.    
He learns to walk and talk. He’s getting potty trained.    
A Toddler in all his rights by now.    
So years have passed probably. She wonders what her parents and Dieter are doing, if they had a funeral, if there’s a grave for her.

He’s awake after bedtime when he speaks to her for the first time.    
“ ‘lo,” he says and waves.    
“Hello,” she says and waves back. Her school english is somewhat broken but all she heard for the past (about three now, isn’t it?) years was english. If she heard anything at all. Most of the living seem to talk quietly and muddled. 

“What’s your  _ name _ ?” 

She thinks about that for a bit. It takes a while because first she doesn’t remember and then when the name comes back, there’s too many options to tell him.    
“Fran,” she says then. “Or Fanni,” she adds then. Not Mama, she’s not going to let him call her by that name. 

“Funny?” he giggles. “That’s funny! I like both! Maybe I can be called Funny when I’m big and have a name. I don’t like Four…” he yawns. “You’re a lot nicer than the others you know?”    
  


She tries to process all of that.    
“The others?” she asks finally but the heavy breathing of the little boy tells her he’s fallen asleep. 

  
  


The others are like her, just scarier he tells.    
“ _G_ _ hosts _ ,” he says knowledgable and looks at her with big eyes. “Only  _ I  _ can see them. I wish I could just be strong like One because One can pick up the couch when toys get under it, yesterday he didn’t do it for me just because he was annoyed at me because I put some of my brokkoli on his plate ‘cause he doesn’ like it either but he always finishes his plate to get praise for finishing his plat but that’s not my fault is it?” he says and crosses his arm. “Anyway, the others are  _ mean  _ and _bad_ . They’re all… mad and scream and it’s not my fault. I told Seven to stop with the killing because they get mad at  _ me _ instead of her which is unfair. Three said so too, super unfair,” he sighs. “At least One only hugged too hard once and never hugs again no more. And he cried ‘cause it was an accident. Pogo says accidents jus’ happen and you can’t be cross with people when they do.”    
“That’s right,” she says and thinks of a bathroom with comics next to the toilette. “Accidents just happen. Nobody can be mad about accidents.”   
He smiles at her brightly. “You’re different Fran. You’re nice and not scary. You're funny.” 

* * *

She meets the others one night when he’s alone in bed. They’re screeching and loud and she happens to be there too.    
They reach out for him and cry.    
“Help us, Four, please… let us leave…”    
He sits in his bed shivering and whimpering.    
“Leave him,” she says. “He’s just a child! Leave him alone!” 

They stop for a while and he sits up sniffling. She looks down at him and looks back at the other ghosts who stare at her gaping.    
“I hate them,” he mutters and looks down. “I hate you! GO AWAY!” 

They leave. She does too. To a weird in-between place and she doesn’t know how long she’s trapped there. But she is trapped. 

She returns scared and unsure of what to do.    
  
“You said I wasn’t scary,” she says and looks at him, he's in bed again.

“Sorry, you aren’t,” he said and sniffed looking down. “But the others were super scary and you were too sorta when you were yelling and everything.” 

“I tried to protect you,” she tells him.    
He looks at her and crosses his arms in front of his chest looking at her with sceptisism. 

He’s grown a lot she realizes suddenly. She wonders how old he is actually.

  
  


She asks. It’s not night so she skipped out again. But she asks. He’s sitting with the others quietly studying. 

  
“Seven,” he whispers.    
“What?” the quiet girl asks.    
“Not yooooouuuu,” he says and then. “Unless you know the answer to…”    
“Ssssshhhh,” the chimpanzee makes. “Concentrate on your work please.”    
  
She thinks there’s probably something wrong with a chimpanzee teaching little kids. She just can’t pinpoint it. 

“Funny!” he cries and she feels his gravity on her as soon as he wants her to be there. Sometimes it feels like she exists only for him. “Fran! Funny Fran! Guess what? Guess!”    
“What?” she asks confused.   
“It’s our birthday.”    
“Oh! Alles Gute,” she says and the German comes out as unexpectedly as her existence.    
“Guess what we got!” he says, unable to hold it back. 

“I don’t know? Presents?” she says. That sounds like a Birthday thing.    
“NAMES! Grace gave us names. Grace is our Mom now. And she gave us names because Moms give their kids names, that’s what three - I mean Allison! - said and  _ Allison  _ knows a whole bunch of things about real life stuff!” he grins at her wide and giddily. “Cause she rumored Dad into giving her TV time once. Dad got real mad when he realized that tho,” he giggles a little. “She got puh-unished. And O-  _ Luther  _ too cause he’s supposed to stop us from doing bad stuff.”    
For some reason she can’t pinpoint there’s something about these revelations that makes her sad.    
He grins at her expectantly. “Don’t you wanna know what my  _ name  _ is?”    
“I… yes? What's your name?”    
“Klaus, I’m Klaus,” he says and hops up and down a little. “I’m Klaus. My name is Klaus. That’s my name.  _ Klaus _ .”    
He shows it to her on a paper he’s written it on over and over again. In different colors.   
Klaus. Klaus. Klaus. Klaus.    
  


* * *

It’s the bad ghosts that are the problem. The ones that scream and yell. She promises if he just keeps her around she’ll try to protect him as good as she can.   
She’ll protect him as best as she can.    
She only sees the others when she’s close to Klaus but she desperately wants him to keep her close. She doesn’t like skipping out on so much stuff. Forgetting so many things. She’s not a bad ghost, she doesn’t deserve to be trapped between existence getting pulled along by his gravity. 

His father takes him away and she gets pulled with him attached to Klaus’ gravity.   
The building is out of stone. The boy sits in a corner shivering, tears staining his face. There are so many bad ghosts and she tries to fend them off. Tries to protect the kid.    
But they are so many and any time she tries to reach out to them she feels their cold and careless rage, their pain and their confusion about a fate she understands so deeply because it is hers…

It wasn't fair that she had to die in the bathroom. It wasn't fair that he used her like this. He killed her and she never got to grow up because of it. She's trapped. 

Something turns inside her. And she turns to him. 

It’s his fault, she knows now. Useless baby she never wanted. Careless, little thing just had to make his way into this world and use her like this. She screeches. She doesn’t know what else she does. Time is meaningless. He screams and curls up.    
  
“Stop it, Funny… please…” 

When the man comes to let him out he’s dirtied and his eyes are glazed over as he’s sucking on his thumb, there’s a wet spot between his legs and the man huffs and says something about repeating the training next month until he's less scared.   
The boy whimpers. 

  
She’s back to herself and stares at Klaus. What got into her?    
  


  
He doesn’t talk to her for a while after this and she feels like she’s slipping again.    
There is a place beyond but she can not reach it, now she is slipping to a place where there’s only rage and pain about her unjust demise. An in-between. A trap.   
Which she can’t even remember.    
All that kept her existing is Klaus’ will and withut she’s floating around in the in-between unsure of space and time. 

He finally speaks to her again at some point.    
“You look creepier since the mausoleum, Fran. I don’t like it. You should look normal again, you’re supposed to be funny…” 

She looks at him. “I do?” 

“Yes, scary,” he tells her and makes a face. “I think you’re becoming one of the bad ones,” he sounds matter-of-factly as he says it.    
“How do I look?” she asks, suddenly curious.    
“You’re all… bloody there,” he says and indicates his crotch. “Where your pants are. And your skin is going off… like... just  _ GROSS _ !” 

She doesn’t want to look like that. She doesn’t want to become a bad ghost.    
“How can I make it stop?” she asks him. 

He shrugs. “I dunno. It was better when we saw each other a lot, so maybe I help or something,” he mutters and sniffs.    
“Maybe,” she says.    
“But you can’t… you’re no good at protecting. Just. Stay around to talk so you don’t turn bad. You’re really scary when you're bad. And I didn't like what you were saying.” 

She agrees to it. He won’t tell her what she said to him and she can’t remember anymore. 

  
It goes well for a while.    
  
He’s getting taller every time she sees him, she forgets a lot she supposes. He keeps her from turning bad though and that’s good.  
She ignores how much she wishes she could reach out to him again. Talk to him always. 

* * *

  
It’s not an accident. It’s her fault. 

He wants to walk in his mother’s shoes, wants to show her how good he can walk around in heels.    
“I’m practically perfect already,” he tells her with a wide smile.    
  
She doesn’t know how the thought comes into her head. A simple push. 

_ Him on her side with her. _

And then he falls down the stairs with a loud scream that gets everyone away from whatever they were doing before.

  
The blonde boy picks him up with ease and it would almost look funny since Klaus is still a few inches taller than him but he whimpers quietly and nothing about it is funny. His brother keeps muttering apologies and words of comfort as he carries him towards the infirmary while the dark haired boy runs to get their mother. 

  
Grace gives him something for the pain and wires his jaw shut.    
His siblings have to leave for their lessons shortly after and she’s left alone with the weird woman who quietly comforts the boy until he falls asleep and she leaves to prepare lunch or… whatever she does.

When he wakes up she wants to comfort him, wants to ask him how badly it hurts and if he’s going to be alright. She didn’t want to hurt him.    
But no matter how hard she tries no matter how loud she tries to be there’s no tone coming from her lips. No matter how badly she tries to reach him, his eyes stay blank, his gravity still strong enough to keep her aware but the more she tries to reach him the sleepier she feels, exhausted, she shouldn’t be able to, she hasn’t felt exhausted since she died and she can’t clearly remember when that was by now. 

He falls asleep again eventually. She keeps staring at him. This time he's not just ignoring her. He's completely unaware of her.   
  


How did the thing about the tree go again? 

If there’s nobody in the forest to witness its fall did it really fall at all. 

If there’s nobody to see her, does she even still exist. 

  
  
  
He has to get back. He has to see her again. Has to tell her that she exists. That she is real.   
He trapped her here.    
He needs to see her.

She loses time again.

She screams at him to open his eyes. To see her.    
To look.    
  
She screams. And yet she makes no sound. She reaches for him. He wakes up. He sleeps. His mother brings him painkillers. She screams. He doesn’t notice. She tries to claw at him just to get his attention.    
  
He doesn’t notice her.    


She forgets time is a thing she can measure. She can’t.    
She is trapped. She is trapped with him under a blanket of painkillers made by his mother.    
Not his mother.    
His mother.    
_ Who am I then?  _ _  
_ Not his mother.    
She’s his victim.

His jaw is still wired shut when he sees him again but he’s somehow back in his room. 

  
“Klaus,” she says. “Help me.”    
  
He stares at her. He can’t talk.    
  
She doesn’t care. “HELP ME! YOU HAVE TO! YOU DID THIS TO ME!” 

She reaches and claws at his arm and he screams. There's blood.    
His mother rushes in and tuts and she hates her she hates her she hates her.    
  
She screams louder. 

* * *

  
  


He doesn’t talk to her even after the wires are out.    
He leaves her. Betrays her just like he killed her. 

_ Murderer.  _   
  
After the event he changed. He found another way of protection. A better one.    
It starts with raiding the medicine cabinet and drinking from the man’s alcohol and ends with him talking to strangers and getting substances she no longer cares about.    
  


She joins the others.   
She doesn’t know their names, she doesn’t care. They are trapped by the house and Klaus’ gravity. 

  
She can never reach out for him again because he doesn’t let her get that close. He won’t let her after the stairs. She lets the rage consume her. 

She is furious when he lets his brother join him. 

Why does he talk to him? What is special about him?    
He does not deserve this. This was supposed to be her place. 

She wants to scream. She does. Nobody hears her.

What right does he have? Why does Klaus let him stay around?

  
  


She watches as he keeps on taking pills. Rejecting her but making an effort even for his brother. 

  
And then he leaves. He’s high and only his brother stays trapped in his gravity.

He turns to her and the other ghosts when they try to follow a single word on his lips.  _ No _ .    
She stays trapped in the house which has its own gravity. Just another one of the bad ghosts. 

  
  


She watches the others trapped with her. Nannies, homeless people killed for training, the mother who isn’t really the mother, the chimpanzee, the blonde boy.    
Dead or alive they’re all trapped and there’s no way out.    
  
And they keep disappearing, ghosts completely lose themselves and stop existing, the blonde boy is just gone at some point and she knows that soon everyone will follow. She hasn’t talked to anyone since she and Klaus talked last. She doesn’t think she can form words anymore. 

Before she can talk to anyone again she completely loses herself. When he and his siblings return to the house because of the death of their father she’s just another shadow to haunt him. One who knows his name.   
Klaus. 

* * *

“Wake up,” Fanni says and her tone is annoyed.   
“Noooooh,” he says and she raises an eyebrow.    
“Come on, clean your apartment a little, Christian wants to see you’re making an effort,” she tells him. Christian is one of the people who drops by once a week to make sure he’s okay, hasn’t started taking drugs again and is adjusting to live. He’s been diagnosed with plenty of mental illnesses and a lot of those diagnoses are wrong, it’s not like she can tell anyone though.

“Fine, fine,” he mutters and gets up. “You’re annoying, Fran,” he tells her and shakes his head.    
“I’m your mother,'' she reminds him.   
“You’re annoying, Ma,” he says and winks. 

  
She looks at him and points to the bathroom and he sighs. “But don’t follow me again, it's weird when you do that.” 

  
She sighs and stays behind reaching for the bed. Her hand goes through. She listens for the noises in the bathroom.    
Being dead is annoying but she saw her kid grow up and she can still talk to him. Make sure he won’t do anything stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the ghost physics in this chapter weren't too weird... I just like to play around with ghosts as a concept tbh.


	5. Dear Ben

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes references to the information we recently got on the sparrows so if you've been trying to stay away from any s3 spoilers maybe skip this one.

The baby is small. They dressed him in a light blue onesie with a small bunny on the front.    
Ha-neul keeps looking at him. He’s adorable.    
She didn’t want a child. Not never but certainly not  _ right now _ .    
Maybe she’d like one or two later in life. But that is a big maybe. 

But now he’s here.    
It isn’t really his fault. It’s not anybody’s fault they were born after all but it’s a problem for her.    
She can stay in the hospital for a bit but not forever and she has to get back to her job working as a translator and what then? What’s she supposed to do with a newborn? She can’t bring him to work and she can’t leave the child here.   
So it's good when the man comes and asks if he can adopt the child.    
She doesn’t even care about the money that much. All she wants is the kid to be gone, to be taken care of by someone who  _ actually  _ wants him. 

  
  
And then he’s gone but she can’t really let go.  
What do you do after something like this happened to you? It was such a random, scary event, women like her died and yet… the media doesn’t focus on them anymore. The mothers that get focused on are the ones who kept their babies, getting praise for standing with their little miracles. 

She keeps thinking about him. In the office, on the train, whenever she sees a mother with a child his age. She knows it wouldn’t have worked out but she still wonders.    
  
  
  
He must be about six months old when she buys the first notebook on a whim.    
It’s the same light blue as the onesie they dressed him in.   
  
She decides to write in English. Reginald Hargreeves is American after all. The kid is American. 

  
  


_ Dear  _

She starts on the first page and stops.    
  
What is she supposed to say? She doesn’t even know the kid’s name.    
Can she just call him Dear? She decides she can.    
  


  
_ Dear,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ you won’t remember me. Ever.  _ _  
_ _ Even though I helped start it I have limited influence on your life. I hope you’re alright though. I hope you’re being good.  _ _  
_ _ I want you to know that it wasn’t your fault. I don’t think it’s easy, knowing how you were born but I harbour no ill will against you.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ It is nobody’s fault when they are born.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I want you to think about that once you’re older and you can understand these things better. I’m sure you understand why I had to give you away.  _ _  
_ _ I hope your new family, Reginald Hargreeves and the many other children (what’s that like having six siblings? I can imagine it’s annoying sometimes, I got annoyed with only one sister!), are good to you.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I’ve started this book to tell you all of this but also to wash my conscience clean. I do feel bad for not being there for you. I understand that when you grow up you might feel that I didn’t love you and I wish I could give you a definitive answer to this (I sincerely hope you’re reading this when you’re older, my dear, this is all very hard to talk about especially if you’re still a child) but I was surprised by your birth as I am sure you were told and I had no way of connecting with you. You don’t have to read this. You have every right to feel angry or sad or whatever else it is you’re feeling and you can just ignore this.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ But you changed my life just by being born. I haven’t been the same person because of you and that you could touch my life like this with just a few days… well it’s incredible.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I wish I could make you understand how incredible it is. How incredible you were and still are.  _

_ I’m going to keep writing in this book for you. And when it’s full I’ll send it to your Dad and maybe I’ll write you a new one and some day when you’re old enough and decide to read it all you’ll see what kind of person I am. And maybe you’ll forgive or maybe you’ll hate me. Or maybe your feelings will be complicated. I don’t know. I just want you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ha-neul _

  
  


She puts the book away feeling freed.    
It’s only a week later that she starts the second letter.    
  
By his first birthday she’s starting the second book, this time it’s light yellow. 

  
She sends them off. She doesn’t get any letters back from Reginald, no acknowledgement of the letters but also no request for her to stop so she keeps writing. 

  
  


* * *

_  
  
  
Dear,  _

_ you’ll turn 7 today. I’m a little tipsy, I got drunk with my sister. If I kept you she’d be your aunt. Isn’t that wild? Do you have many aunts or uncles? Hargreeves seems like an only-child to me. Did you meet your grandparents? I never thought about that. He always seemed to just be there.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I hope you’re having fun, you must have gotten a lot of presents since your father is so rich. Surely you and the others had a big party with all of your friends... _ _  
_ _  
_ _ You’re in school by now aren’t you?  _ _  
_ _ Such a big boy already… I want to believe that you’re a very good student but it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re happy nothing else matters.  _ _  
_ _ Sometimes I wish I had pictures of you so I’d know what you look like, if maybe you got some features of me…  _

_ But I gave up on that when I gave up on you didn’t I?  _ _  
_ _ I’m sorry. I hope you know I am. Things were complicated. Still are. It seemed like the better option. It still seems like it if I am honest with you… you’ll be fine. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Happy Birthday anyway.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ha-neul  _

_  
  
_

He adds a small bunny plushie to the journal when she sends it off. She hopes he’ll like it, she thinks it’s cute.    
  
  


  
  


She has sent twentyfour journals filled with her thoughts and letters for him when she finally learns his name.    
He’s Ben. Ben Hargreeves.    
He is a superhero.    
  


  
_ Dear Ben,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I saw you on TV! You and your brothers and sister! You are superheroes apparently. That’s how I learned your name. _ _  
_ _ I’m sure it’s exciting being a superhero… I just hope you’re being careful? Your father surely has done something to assure your safety?  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I always thought it was seven of you he adopted. That’s what the news said back then at least but… I guess I’m either misremembering or your other sibling didn’t want to go…  _ _  
_ _ It is a huge commitment isn’t it? _ _  
_ _ I do hope you’re being careful.  _ _  
_ _ It’s exciting to now know your name and to be able to see your face, it’s interesting. You’ve grown so much! (Of course you have! It’s been so long…)  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I wish you luck with your new task… Just be careful. Promise me that. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ha-neul _   
  


Most of the letters in her journals are about his superhero career that year.    
  
_ Dear Ben,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I hope you’re well after that last mission.  _ _  
_ _ It seemed rather difficult. It couldn’t have been easy.  _ _  
_ _ The death of those two civilians wasn’t your fault, dear. Or any of you siblings’.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I don’t think a world in which children like you and your siblings have to fight for adults is a bad one.  _ _  
_ _ But maybe our world is just bad.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I don’t want to think bad of your father and I don’t want you to think bad of him… you need to respect and love him of course. I’m sure it’s all well and he takes care of you.  _ _  
_ _ I just want you to know that it isn’t your fault. And that you shouldn’t have to do all these things. I wish you didn’t have to... _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ha-neul _

  
  


_ Dear Ben,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Are you well?  _ _  
_ _ I read that interview with you and your siblings. _

_ You guys looked like you were having fun!  _ _  
_ _ That girl, Allison, surely is a charmer! And your brother Klaus is very funny…  _ _  
_ _ You all seemed very sweet. I gasped when Luther picked up the couch with all of you on it.  _ _  
_ _ Wouldn’t it be nice if you could only do those interviews instead of having to do such violent things?  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I just wish… oh well. I wish your life was easier.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ha-neul _

  
  


* * *

It’s March 2006 when she gets her first letter back.    
  
  


_ Dear Ha-neul.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Hi… I guess.  _ _  
_ _ I’ve been meaning to write to you ever since I read your journals for the first time.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I just never knew how I would do that. I mean I know how to write of course. I just didn’t know how to do this. All of this. What to say… what to tell you… I never knew.  _ _  
_ _ I’m writing this in secret so that my Dad won’t know. He wouldn’t like me writing you this.  _

_ But I want to tell you some things: You’re right. The whole getting bad guys thing… the missions… it’s all awfully violent. It’s horrible. I actually  _ _ hate _ _ it.  _

_ I think even Luther hates the violent part and he always pretends he loves doing missions. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I’m thinking about leaving. Going to college. Getting a job. I think I’ll take Klaus with me, get him some help and maybe Luther too. He needs to get out of there, get an education that’s how he’ll get to be an astronaut. I’m sure he knows it too but he won’t do it alone because Dad scares him. He doesn’t say it but I know. I know my brother.  _ _  
_ _ I know all my siblings.  _ _  
_ _ All six of them. Because you were right about that too!  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Nobody’s supposed to know about Vanya anymore. She’s number 7.  _ _  
_ _ I didn’t even know that people knew Dad adopted seven. But Vanya doesn’t have powers, that's why she can’t go to missions. It’s better honestly. But she really wants them badly. She thinks powers are so cool.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ But they aren’t! They’re horrible. I  _ _ hate _ _ mine.  _ _  
_ _ I just guess it’s different when you grow up without them around people who have them. _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I hope you’re okay too Ha-neul.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Ben  _

  
  


She reads the letter over and over again. 

The way he underlines hate, the way his words seem to bleed together when he writes about his plans for college with his brother.    
  
She wonders for a long time how she should answer and then she sits down and starts writing.    
  


  
  


_ Dear Ben,  _

_ I’m sorry to hear things are so bad right now.  _ _  
_ _ But I think it’s amazing that you have plans for the future! You have hope and you are so young. You have every opportunity in the world. I’m proud of you.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ And I think you considering your brothers in your plans is even better! Compassion that’s what you have and it makes you a superhero far more than any of the violence you commit for your father.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I wish I could help you… maybe I could send you some money to support your college dreams?  _ _  
_ _ I would like to see you succeed.  _ _  
_ _ It feels like it’s partially my fault that things are so bad for you. I was the one who allowed Hargreeves to take you after all. I didn’t know it would turn out like this.  _ _  
_ _  
_ She sends it to America with express mail.    
The next letter comes back after a month and a half.    
  
  
  
_ Dear Ha-neul,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I think I can manage. I’ve been saving up for a while now!  _ _  
_ _ But if I ever do need money, I’ll let you know. Unless that’s too much for your own financial situation of course! _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I do think college is the best idea. A nice little apartment with Luther and Klaus.  _ _  
_ _ Klaus can go to rehab and then figure out what to do with himself and Luther can study astrophysics because he always loved space and I’m thinking about taking English? I love reading!  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I’m not worried about the other three.  _ _  
_ _ Allison knows pretty much that she’s heading to Hollywood. She’ll be a star!  _ _  
_ _ Vanya got her violin and she’s great.  _ _  
_ _ You gotta keep your eyes open for my sisters! They’ll both be rising stars!  _ _  
_ _ Diego does worry me a little more though. He does have a plan at least which is good. He told me he wants to go to the police academy.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Honestly, Ha-neul, just talking to you helps me. It’s nice to know there’s someone out there who cares even if it’s so far away.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Love Ben.  _

  
  


She reads it and smiles.    
  
They write their letters back and forth for a while and she feels excited. Ben and her. Talking.    
It’s around his birthday that he brings up meeting each other and she gets excited.    
  
They start planning for something far off in the future and then…    
  


  
Then she gets the news. On TV again.    
He’s dead. Ben died.    
Meetings, college plans, saving his brothers… it’s all gone. His golden brighter looking future… gone.    
  
She stares at the TV. Impossible she thinks.    
He wanted to do so much but one botched mission and he’s gone.   
  


There’s a brief interview. None of the children speak. Luther’s eyes are empty, Diego is shivering next to him with tears and anger, Allison doesn’t hide her tears, Klaus looks completely dazed.    
  
And Ben’s gone.    
No more letters. No more future.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The day she learns of his father’s death she quietly jumps up in her apartment and hugs herself.    
It does feel a little like revenge. It feels like justice and now… 

  
She blinks where was she? Oh the letters!    
  
She opens the letter and turns to read it.    
  


_ Ha-neul,  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ I don’t know. I certainly think I’m a better fit than Marcus as a leader but I feel like Dad might have different qualities in a leader. Namely: Easy to manipulate.  _ _  
_ _ I know you want me to be careful and I will be but certain stuff is just annoying. If I can prove to Dad that I am just as valuable as him…  _

_ But I told you how hard it is to make him happy.  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Ben.  _ _  
_   
  
She sighs.   
Ben's been talking about his plans to overthrow this Marcus guy as a leader and how unhappy he is with his place as number 2 for a long while now, she keeps trying to steer him off but she doesn't really know what else to tell him at this point.  
  
  
She sits down and starts to write   
  
_Dear Ben,_  



	6. The smell of chlorine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a change there at the end, I guess. 
> 
> I don't really know what to say about this chapter except for I'm once again asking to use Vanya to project some personal shit on...

After the 1st October 1989 Tatiana’s life was changed forever.   
  
She was on her way to be the next swimming champion for her nation.   
From the small apartment she shared with her family to Olympia, that had been her plan and she’d been determined, training every day at her local pool until she couldn’t wash the chlorine smell off her hair and clothes anymore.   
  
  
But after giving birth she can’t be that anymore.  
She needs to heal down there… and then… she can’t return to the pool anymore. She just can’t.   
  
Every time she jumps into the water she starts to trash around feeling like her stomach might have ballooned suddenly, she’s unable to breath.  
It’s ridiculous but after a while she just doesn’t go back to training anymore.   
  
Her dream of Olympia is over and she hasn’t even had the baby to show for it.   
She suddenly finds herself wishing that she hadn’t given her daughter away.   
She’d gotten money for her of course and the money has been really helpful for her especially since she can’t perform anymore but it still feels like she abandoned her kid.  
  
  
Dimitrie tells her she’s being unreasonable. The money was a good choice.   
And yes, it was. Of course.   
“I mean could you really have loved her?” he asks. “You don’t even swim anymore. You just would’ve… gotten mad at her,” he looks down. “And I mean… if you still want to have kids…” he adds, looking down and blushing slightly.   
  
  
Tatiana laughs and kisses his cheek softly. He’s just… so good.   
And he’s still there. He doesn’t whisper behind her back, like most people in school do now, he still seems like he sees her like Tatianna, not the girl who suddenly had a baby in the swimming pool.   
  
She thinks she truly loves him. 

  
She does get back into swimming eventually. It takes time and she never gets back to her Olympia plans.    
She’s a trainer now. A different pool. A different job.   
  
And she and Dimitrie do work on the whole still wanting kids thing.    
She tries not to think about her daughter too much. If she does it might make her go mad or cry for hours. 

* * *

  
  
She wants to believe she’s happy wherever she is now. America, Hargreeves' house, some orphanage he built for these children maybe... wherever, she wants her to be happy. She thinks so at least.   
She should be around five years now… she can’t imagine what that might be like having a five year old daughter.    
She’d love her. Wouldn’t she?    
  
Dimitrie reminds her not to think about it too much. They got each other now and they really do.    
  
  
She gives birth to a very sweet boy in January of 1996 and she asks herself how the other one would like to be a big sister, if she’d get excited about it or think her little brother was stupid.    
_ What would you say if you were here now? _ she thinks absentmindedly as she pulls a little hat over her son's ears.    
She won’t tell him about his sister. No. She couldn’t.    
She just wants to forget about it, really.   
She has him to focus on now.    
She names him Andrej and holds him close to her chest. “You’re an only child,” she whispers. “I’ll raise you like one.” 

* * *

  
  
“Look at this,” Dimitrie says one day when she comes home from work. He’s holding a newspaper and Tatianna frowns.   
“What’s that?” she asks.    
“The article,” Dimitrie says and thumbs his pen against the paper softly. “Hargreeves is the man you gave…  _ her  _ to isn’t it?”    
She looks at the article.  _ Hargreeves Superhero Academy saves the day _ . She looks over the pictures of the kids standing there, studying their faces.    
  
She’s not under them. She looks down. “ _ She’s _ not with them,” she tells Dimitrie quietly.    
“Oh… do you know… why?” he asks and stares at her.    
“He must have not wanted her after all,” she shrugs. “Maybe she died,” she tries to make it sound matter of factly but when she picks up her cup of coffee she’s shaking.    
  


  
What did she do to the kid?    
  
She feels Dimitrie putting his arms around her.    
“Why did you show me?” she asks and pushes him away. “How could you show me this? I told you I didn’t want to think about her anymore!” she says and he stumbles back away.    
  
“But…”    
“Don’t mention  _ her  _ again!” she yells.    
  
He sighs and leaves her in the kitchen.    
The coffee mug is still trembling in her hand.    
  


There’s more about these super hero kids in the news every month from then on. She tries to ignore it, tries to ignore that  _ she  _ isn’t there and tries to stop herself from thinking too much about why that might be.    
  


Andrej helps, he’s her sunshine without knowledge of what happened to her before she had him.    
He won’t ever know that he has a biological sister somewhere out there… or not.    
He won’t ever know.    
She tells him not to watch anything about the Umbrella Academy.    
“Full of violence,” she says. “Nothing for a little boy.” 

He might watch it in secret but at least she doesn’t have to see it.

  
  
  
At some point ignoring the Umbrella Academy gets easier. The hype has passed there’s nothing much about them in the newspapers anymore. Something happened, she thinks. She can’t be sure about what though, she doesn’t want to know.    
  
  


* * *

  
And then she learns that  _ she  _ isn’t dead, that Hargreeves hadn’t given her away after all or whatever else she came up with.    
A book. It’s a simple book. Andrej throws it on the table in front of her.    
He’s been reading it.    
Dimitrie told him who  _ she _ was. The author of the book. Tatiana feels betrayed.   
  
  
Vanya Hargreeves. She looks so small and sad in both the pictures. The one in which she’s a pre-teen and the one that shows her as an adult.    
  
“Why didn’t you tell me? How could you not tell me that I have a sister?” he yells, his face is red.    
“I didn’t know how to…”    
“She suffered because of you! Her father hated her and her siblings were absolute assholes to her! How could you do this? How could you sell her?” 

She looks down in shame. “I didn’t know…” she whispers.    
“You should’ve known! You could have known! When this academy showed up without her you could’ve known what they were doing to her!”   
  
She doesn’t know what to tell him after that.    
“I’m writing to her,” Andrej tells her. “I’ll tell her that she has a brother that actually cares!”    
“I… you don’t know how she’ll respond to that, darling,” Tatiana says and Andrej shrugs.    
“I know she’ll love to learn about me, she longs to have a caring family.”   
  
She doesn’t tell him not to go through with writing her after that. But she doesn’t think it’ll go well.   
She reads the first few chapters of the book and then she breaks down crying. She left a young child to fend for herself in a household filled with people that were against her.    
  
She can’t continue reading about the torture that small baby she gave birth to in her favorite swimsuit.    
  


Andrej does write to Vanya but she doesn’t ever write back.    
“Maybe she thinks that I’m kidding…” he tells Tatianna when he finally talks to her again.    
“Maybe…”    
They don’t talk about her after that much again.    
  


* * *

  
  
Until: “You know Hargreeves died, right?” Andrey tells her when he’s visiting.   
“He did?”    
“Yeah. Good riddance, bastard, that’s what Vanya’s probably saying. Most of them, I guess.”    
  
Yes. Probably she blinks. Something is wrong.   
Andrej looks up at her as if he wants to say something and then...   
  


Andrej wakes up, his alarm is as quiet as possible. Loud enough to still wake him and… quiet enough so it wouldn’t pass into the room down the hallway.    
They tried to soundproof it as best as possible of course when they moved into the new house. He and his mother.    
He gets up and sighs. He needs a coffee.    
  
She’s in the kitchen in her wheelchair making breakfast and he smiles and gives her a kiss on her forehead.    
“How are you doing?” he asks..    
“Fine,” she says and smiles slightly. “I was about to…”    
“I can wake her, don’t worry.”    
  
  
  


Andrej wonders sometimes if his sister is aware of how hard it is to be her little brother. Everything in his life since the day he was born has always revolved around her.    
  
_ “Don’t play too loud, think of your sister!” “Please stop crying, your sister may hear you!” “Be quiet, you know, your sister!”  _ _   
_ _   
_ _   
_ Andrej knows it isn’t her fault, he loves her even though it gets difficult especially this month, it’s been almost fifteen years since his father died.    
It was an accident, a tantrum, she didn’t know what she was doing.    
They lied to make it seem like a normal accident, a faulty construction. The wall just broke down. Sometimes Andrej tells himself that’s how it really was.    
It still hurts. His whole life is about making sure his older sister will be safe. 

  
  
  
He opens the door to her room. It’s the smallest room in the house.   


The walls are lined with plastic foam and she is curled up under her soft comforter with the stars on it. He touches her back and she wakes up slowly rubbing at her eyes.    
  
“Andrej?” she asks and scratches at her ears to get the ear plugs out of it.    
“Good Morning,” he says and sits down on the bed helping her. “Did you sleep well?” he asks as he gets the plugs out.    
  
She gets ear infections easily and they need to make sure that she’s well taken care of.    
He gets her headphones from her bedside table. They’re purple and noise cancelling and she had them since she was a child, he still sees her in front of her drawing the headphones over her ears.    
He checks behind her ears carefully. The skin gets red and raw often. They put cream on it to help.    
  
  
Sometimes he wonders what her world is like. She’s stuck in between silence and noise.    
  
She nods and looks at him. When meeting her for the first time people often assume she’s mute but she can talk. She just chooses not too often, she made the experience that one gets laughed at when her words are wrong but she learned them too late in life.    
There’s a lot that his parents should’ve done differently but they hadn’t known how.    
After they realized that what was causing her to make things float around, sometimes transforming her toys into dangerous projectiles was sound, they stopped giving it to her.    
She grew up without any words spoken to her for years and when they finally started again she was too far behind learning to get it all right.    
She didn’t get to play with other kids often and all of his life he remembers her being quiet and small.    
  
Quiet and small and absorbing all the energy from his mother. It’s fine, he thinks. He loves her.    
  
  


Their mother rolls in and lays out a dress for her and she looks at him pleading. 

“Pants?” she asks.    
“It’s pretty, you’ll look pretty,” their mother tells her. He knows she can’t let her get too emotional, when her emotions get the best of her she might have a meltdown but still she insists on things like dresses.    
  
“Does she really need to wear the dress? Come on, you know she hates it,” he says and cringes. He hates treating his sister like a child. She’s an adult. She’s amazing, he loves watching her draw, she loves the way she writes stories for him and only him to read, lining up words she’s been deprived of all her life and he just loves her.    
  
It’s not her fault she’s…  _ special _ .    
It’s not her fault their parents were so scared of her.    
  
  
“We have a doctor’s appointment,” their mother says.    
He nods and looks back at her. “Sorry, pants tomorrow, yeah?”    
She reads his lips. She can do that. She’s an expert at it. He squeezes her hand. She squeezes back.    
  


She smiles at him softly and he just hopes she’ll be okay.   
He hopes they’ll all be okay.    
  
  



End file.
